#7 An Expedition to Find Texture

Learning Areas: The Arts- creating and making, exploring and responding, Science- patterns, order and organisation, Communication- listening, viewing and responding, Interpersonal Development- working in teams
Materials: crayons, A3 cartridge paper, scissors, glue, paper scroll or very large scale paper (A0) for final collaborative work

As artists, you all know how to manipulate two elements of art to create different artistic compositions: colour and line

You also understand some of the ways you can present your work: installation, collage, drawing, painting, out-door ephemeral art.

Today we are all going to explore a new element to add to your artist’s toolbox - texture

Artist Feature: Del Kathryn Barton

I’d like to share with you some art by a very interesting contemporary Australian artist called Del Kathryn Barton.

She has won a big art prize (twice!) called the Archibald Prize, which is a portrait prize. Do you remember what a portrait is? 
She likes to use a lot of texture in her work. 

This is one of her portraits. …. What can you see?

The Daughter, Del Kathryn Barton 2011-12 Acrylic, gouache, watercolour, ink

Detail from The Daughter ( not original orientation)

Let’s read Move! By Steven Jenkins and Robin Page

As well as noticing texture throughout this book, we can also notice lots of ‘doing words’ which are called verbs.

You are going to get to practice your describing words from last lesson – your adjectives to talk about the textures you see.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

Investigation: An expedition to find texture

Let's head outdoors on an expedition to find different textures using a technique called ‘crayon rubbing’

You may have done this experiment with coins.

Try to highlight each rubbing with a different colour. 
Choose three different coloured crayons to take with you on your expedition.

We are going to be using the rubbings to create a composition when we get back.

There is a lot of fun and excitement as the children find surfaces that make interesting rubbings. 

Making: Collage Texture Creatures

Lets have another look at the book ‘Move!’ we read earlier.

Can you see how the artist has created the animals?

We are going to draw some body outlines with a dark crayon over our texture rubbings. Then we will cut out the body parts and stick them onto a scroll to make an animal frieze.

Lets look at your rubbings to see what sort of animal they would best suit? I’d like us to get as many different animals as possible, so try to think of unique animals for your work.  

New Vocabulary rubbings, verb, texture